Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Eight months af­ter re­lo­cat­ing to Riv­er Road, Cunu­pia, to es­cape the dead­ly vi­o­lence which took over the St Au­gus­tine com­mu­ni­ty, a fa­ther and son were ex­e­cut­ed in a bru­tal gang-style shoot­ing ear­ly yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said An­tho­ny John, 43, and his son Vikie Joseph, 20, were am­bushed by two masked gun­men around 6.13 am, af­ter they left to pick co­conuts with a third fam­i­ly mem­ber, 17-year-old Ri­car­do Joseph. The trio had just left their rent­ed home in a Kia K2700 pick-up van when they were at­tacked on the cor­ner of Mon Plaisir Road and Riv­er Road, a short dis­tance from where they lived.

Sur­veil­lance footage ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia from a near­by res­i­dent showed the killers emerg­ing from a grey Nis­san Y11 Wingroad and open­ing fire on the ve­hi­cle. One of the as­sailants was al­so seen go­ing un­der the pick-up van and ap­peared to tam­per with some­thing be­neath it. The at­tack last­ed just 16 sec­onds.

Po­lice said Ri­car­do Joseph was se­ri­ous­ly wound­ed and rushed to the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre by a vil­lager. He was lat­er trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he was in crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

Es­ha Joseph, 21, John’s daugh­ter, said the fam­i­ly had been liv­ing in fear. She said they re­lo­cat­ed sev­er­al times to es­cape gang vi­o­lence in St Au­gus­tine. She said they moved to Riv­er Road around eight months ago af­ter flee­ing their Warn­er Street home in 2023, fol­low­ing the mur­der of her un­cle near the Ca­roni Round­about. Dur­ing his wake, an­oth­er rel­a­tive was fa­tal­ly shot.

“Our house in Warn­er Trace, St Au­gus­tine, was burnt down. We have been on the run ever since,” Es­ha said, re­count­ing that the fam­i­ly stayed in Care­nage, Scot­land Bay, the small is­lands off the West Coast, and San Juan be­fore end­ing up in Cunu­pia.

In 2023, there were sev­er­al shoot­ings and mur­ders on Warn­er Street, Free­man Road and Train­line Street in the St Au­gus­tine com­mu­ni­ty. Sev­er­al homes were torched in ar­son at­tacks.

Es­ha al­so claimed the fam­i­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived threats from a lo­cal vil­lager who said he would pay to have them killed. The same house they were rent­ing in Cunu­pia was shot at on April 4. Last De­cem­ber, Vikie had al­so been shot in the leg. She al­so not­ed that one of her broth­ers is cur­rent­ly in­car­cer­at­ed.

Es­ha, who does not live with her fam­i­ly, said she ar­rived at the scene short­ly af­ter the shoot­ing.

“My babysit­ter called and said my fa­ther and broth­er just got shot. I didn’t be­lieve it.”

Es­ha said when she ar­rived on the scene her fa­ther was slumped over the steer­ing wheel and Vick­ie was dead on the pave­ment.

De­spite the on­go­ing threats and vi­o­lence, Es­ha said her fa­ther was a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen who had re­cent­ly tak­en a job dri­ving a ve­hi­cle for a co­conut wa­ter bot­tling busi­ness.

“We’ve been run­ning for our lives for two years,” she said. “If we stayed, my broth­ers would have been dead.”

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for Ca­roni East, Dr Rishard Seecha­ran, called on the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to move quick­ly on the at­tack.

Seecha­ran said “I call on act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin to as­sign the re­quired re­sources to ur­gent­ly solve the mon­strous crime in Cunu­pia that took the lives of two peo­ple and left a third se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

“The po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion should al­so seek to de­ter­mine whether the crime is con­nect­ed to pre­vi­ous mur­ders in Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, and to the re­cent ter­ror­is­ing of Cunu­pia res­i­dents. The po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors must take rig­or­ous steps to avoid reprisal at­tacks.”

He added, “Com­mis­sion­er Ben­jamin should strength­en crime-fight­ing mea­sures in Cunu­pia and sur­round­ing ar­eas, where there are ran­dom acts of law­less­ness, many of them linked to un­der­world ac­tiv­i­ties.”